


Drink the Wine

by coricomile



Category: Deadpool (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: I Don't Even Know, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-29
Updated: 2015-11-29
Packaged: 2018-05-03 22:07:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5308790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coricomile/pseuds/coricomile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deadpool crashes through his window on a Wednesday morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drink the Wine

Deadpool crashes through his window on a Wednesday morning. Bruce jerks awake, heartbeat thundering in his ears and breath catching in his throat. He blinks and then there's just the edge of a red mask peeking up behind his mattress, the fold of red leather at the top flopped over to the side. Eight red fingers appear as Deadpool raises himself up just far enough to watch. 

"I don't know where you were trying to go," Bruce says, rubbing at his tired eyes, "but you've got the wrong room." He pauses and looks at the shattered window. "Those are reinforced. How did you even get through?"

"I've never met a wall I couldn't break," Deadpool says, glancing just behind Bruce's shoulder. When Bruce turns to look, all he sees is his headboard, as plain and ugly as it ever had been. "I was aiming for Stark. He promised me explody things."

"I'm not Stark. Try going through the front door next time. Surprises and me aren't really good for anyone." Bruce settles back against the mattress, too awake already. Deadpool still hasn't moved, just the top of his head and the wide, white eyes of his mask visible. Bruce pulls his legs in, away from Deadpool's hands. "Feel free to go back the way you came."

"You ripped me in half last week," Deadpool says. He set his chin on the mattress, the shadow of his mouth moving under the spandex. Bruce grimaces. He remembers red and black tearing easily between green hands, remembers the human wail of pain as the other guy threw legs and torso in opposite directions. "Can I get a cuddle for the pain?"

"No." Bruce points at the window, frowning. The longer Deadpool is in the room with him, the more he can smell the sharp, coppery stench of blood. He doesn't ask how fresh it is because he doesn't want to know. "Front door. Back through the window. Go."

Deadpool pats his leg through his quilt and leaps to his feet, all energy and wide, extravagant motions. Bruce dislikes morning people on principal. He's somehow not surprised that Deadpool is one of them. There's a chunk of glass embedded in Deadpool's stomach, red creeping up to stain it. That would explain the blood smell. Bruce feels a bit bad for hoping that none got on his sheets. 

"Later, Hulk," Deadpool says. He gives Bruce a salute and turns towards the window. There's another chunk of glass sticking out of his ass, right above his thigh. It has to hurt like hell, but Deadpool barely limps. "Love the naked thing. You should do it more often. Bet you'd save on pants." He vaults out the broken window, glass raining down onto the pavement below, and Bruce can hear him ask himself, "how much do you think he spends on pants?"

Bruce rolls over and tries to go back to sleep. Tony can work on Deadpool-proof glass later. It'll give him something to do. 

\---

The gifts start showing up a week later. Bruce finds a stuffed walrus under his covers, its mottled and dirty fur burned in a few patches. After that, there's a fruit basket on his desk that's missing all the pineapples. He finds those two days later, rotting slowly in a vase in the bathroom. A hand drawn card makes its way into his lab work, a crudely drawn Hulk standing in a field of dandelions next to the unmistakable red and black smears of Deadpool's costume. There's a purple heart drawn between them in surprisingly accurate anatomical detail. 

"I think Deadpool has a crush on me," Bruce says. It doesn't make any more sense out loud, but he's hoping he can process it with outside input. 

"You are pretty adorable in a rage monster kind of way," Tony says. He pushes his sleeves up and takes the drawing carefully. "You know, the rage monster thing is probably one of the big buttons for Red. Aw, look, he drew you holding hands."

"You're not helping," Bruce says, snatching the paper back and crushing it. He tosses it in the waste bin and pushes down the little kernel of guilt that settles in his chest. "What do I do with-" Bruce waves a hand at the trashcan, unable to find words to accurately explain Deadpool breaking into the tower repeatedly to leaving him _courting_ gifts. "All of this."

"I bet he's a beast in the sack," Tony says, staring off into the distance for a moment. "The crazy ones always are. I mean, keep the mask on for your own sanity, but you deserve good sex, Bruce."

"Thank you?" Bruce pushes back from his desk and rubs at his eyes. He's been in the lab too long. Every thought is coming to him in binary, flashing behind his eyelids every time he blinks. "I'm going to sleep for a while. Try not to blow anything up until I get back."

"Baby, I always save the best explosions for you," Tony says, already distracted halfway across the room. Bruce is almost out of the door when the crumpled drawing hits him in the back of the head. "Tell me how it goes with the psycho."

Bruce leaves the drawing on the floor and retreats tactfully to his room. He pulls a beer from the refrigerator, settles on the couch and closes his eyes. He should actually go to bed. Sleep is at the edge of his brain, calling sweetly to him, but the thought of someone, anyone, having anything as simple as a crush on him is bizarre enough to make him fight it.

"JARVIS, could you pull up the dossier on Wade Wilson?" He asks. It's probably not his best idea, but he'd like to go in with at least some information. 

"Certainly, Doctor Banner," JARVIS replies, and a screen with Deadpool's files pops up in front of him. 

Wade really is gruesome to look at. The pink, crisscrossing stretch of his scars make his face puffy and wide, make his eyes look small in their sockets. His hair, what little there is, is blonde. Bruce can't stop looking at it. Wade had been blonde before. It's a small detail, but it sticks in Bruce's mind. Wade had been blonde. 

He reads about Wade's pre-Deadpool mercenary work, reads about the weapon X program, reads about the Hospice. His stomach turns as he flips through page after page detailing torture and death. SHIELD psychologists say he's schizophrenic, which is nothing surprising. The news reports just call him batshit crazy, which is also not a surprise.

Wade's not a good man, Bruce thinks, scanning job description after job description. But are any of them, really?

Bruce waves the screen away and deposits his empty bottle on the coffee table. He shuffles to his bedroom, shucks down to his boxers, and crawls into bed. His life has become a joke.

\---

There's a shadow in the corner vibrating. Bruce reaches blindly for his glasses and sighs. He'd stopped being afraid of things in the dark a long time ago, and he's been expecting to see this particular shadow for a few days. 

"How did you get in this time?" Bruce asks. He clicks on the lamp and Wade waves. He's like a living cartoon character, face mobile under the mask, jittery like he's been drinking espresso for hours. He might have been. Bruce doesn't know. 

"I wouldn't want to spoil the mystery," Wade says. He shoves a box poorly wrapped with newspaper onto Bruce's bed. There's a rusty stain on one corner that Bruce knows is blood. 

"Wade," Bruce says, wiping a hand across his face. He's tired and there had been an attack earlier that had brought out the other guy. Bruce can still feel the pulse of anger just under his skin, the Hulk restless and looking for any sign at all to break free. "Why are you doing this?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Wade asks. He lifts a leg and nudges the box with his foot. Bruce grimaces and reluctantly takes it. By the time he's gotten through the ridiculous layers of tape, Wade's gone, vanished through the window again. 

Bruce opens the box carefully. Inside, nestled in a blanket of shredded newspaper, is a box of pancake mix and a first-year physics textbook with a library stamp on the inside of the front cover. Bruce drops his head into his hands and laughs until he can't breathe, only slightly hysterical. 

Deadpool brought him breakfast in bed and reading material. He feels sick with delirium. 

He dresses and takes the pancake mix down to the kitchen, where Clint's hunched over a bowl of cereal. Clint watches him make pancake after pancake, his eyebrows rising slowly until they're nearly up to his hairline. 

"Not that I'm not in favor of pancakes," Clint says, hopping up to sit on the counter next to the two overflowing plates, "but I'm maybe worried about your head." Clint grabs one of the cooled pancakes and stuffs the whole thing into his mouth, shoving it off into his cheek. 

"I think I've finally cracked," Bruce admits. When there's no more batter, he stares at the mountain of starch and sugar. He's not even hungry. 

"Is it the being seduced by Wade thing?" Clint asks, words muffled around his mouthful. "Cause I can see how that would make you crazy."

"Tony told you?" Bruce asks. He doesn't bother feeling annoyed. If Tony knows something, everyone else would eventually. Clint snorts and stuffs another pancake into his mouth. 

"Wade cornered me and asked for wooing tips," Clint says. Bruce blinks at him, trying to imagine Deadpool asking for anything as mundane as _wooing_ tips. Clint shrugs. "I know, right? What the hell do I know about wooing? That's Stark's area. Or Steve's." 

"You were the one to suggest breakfast in bed?" Bruce asks. Clint gives him a disgustingly gummy grin. "Please, don't encourage this."

"I figure you'll either get laid or take Wade out for good," he says, sliding off the counter. "Both are a win in my book."

"Why is everyone so obsessed with whether I'm getting laid or not?" Bruce asks, unable to keep the petulant whine out of his voice. He feels like a teenager all over again, uncomfortable and spotty and unable to parse the people surrounding him. 

 

"That's what friends do, big guy," Clint says, clapping him on the shoulder. "My suggestion? Tape his mouth, leave the costume on, and go for a ride. Can't hurt."

"It really, really can," Bruce mutters. He makes himself a plate, grabs the half empty syrup from the refrigerator, and sits in Clint's abandoned chair. It's been ages since he's had pancakes. Clint grins at him again and makes his exit, leaving his empty cereal bowl and juice glass on the table for Steve to collect later. 

The pancakes are good at least, Bruce thinks morosely. 

\---

"You have a visitor," Tony says cheerfully from the doorway of Bruce's lab. Bruce rubs at his left eye, ignoring the twinge. He's long past due for a new pair of glasses, but he always forgets he needs new ones until the damage is already done. When he glances up, Tony's already backing away, thumbs held up and mouth twisted in a grin. 

"Heya," Wade says, peeking in. "Ooh, that looks nifty." He's across the room before Bruce can blink, gloved fingers prodding at the wires of the blood centrifuge machine in the corner. It's off, thankfully, but Bruce still lunges across the room anyway. His was the last in it, and the last thing he needs is Wade Wilson on gamma radiation. "We have got to get one of these things." 

Wade flitters around the room, poking various machines and climbing over counters with no regard for himself or the things he's touching. Bruce can feel his blood pressure rising as he watches Wade creep around the bank of computers that hold the backup for the last decade of work. 

"Please step away from the computers," Bruce says, reaching out to grab a flailing arm. It's warm through the leather, the accelerated process of skin regrowth throwing his metabolism into a frenzy. For a moment, Bruce wonders exactly how much Wade has to eat to keep himself going. "Actually, please step away from everything. You don't have clearance to be in this part of the building."

"Tony Stark gave me a pass," Wade says cheerfully, whipping a laminated card from somewhere Bruce can't quite figure out. It's an ID pass, just like the one clipped to Bruce's lab coat. Wade is still masked in his ID photo, thumbs held up just on the inside of the frame. Bruce pushes his glasses up and pinches the bridge of his nose. Of course Tony would ignore protocols and the safety of the lab techs for this pointless excuse of a joke. "He said I can be your assistant."

"I don't need or want an assistant," Bruce says, eyes still closed. Part of him is hoping that when he opens them, he'll wake up in his bed, Wade free. "The work is delicate, and you're-" 

"I can be delicate," Wade says. He wiggles his eyebrows through his mask, pulling the leather. It's absurd. Completely and utterly absurd. He's still wearing his swords across his back, the handles sticking up over his shoulders warningly. Bruce is going to break the coffee maker and crush one of Tony's cars. It seems like a fair trade. "Look at me, being delicate."

"I'll let you stay," Bruce says, knowing a battle lost, "if you sit still and don't touch anything else. Deal?" Wade thunks down into a chair immediately, rolling halfway across the room. He props his elbows on his knees and rests his chin on his folded hands. 

"We can totally be still," Wade says, the unblinking eyes of his mask trained firmly on Bruce. Bruce turns away from it, uneasy, and forces himself to go back to the figures on his screen. The laboratory is Hulk-proof, even if the equipment isn't. If worst comes to worst, he thinks grimly, he can at least deal with the problem. 

\---

Wade's visits to the laboratory are frequent, if not on any schedule Bruce can figure out. Sometimes he brings spicy Mexican food and beer, sometimes he brings half bloodied trinkets, presenting them like a particularly vicious house cat proud of its kill. He sits in one of the chairs or on top of a desk and runs his mouth near constantly. He talks to Bruce, to himself, to anything that holds still long enough to be talked at. 

Occasionally Tony stops by, checking in on Bruce's results. He's been handing over plans from R&D in the hopes that Bruce's skills can stable them out. It's not Bruce's normal work, not anything nearly resembling it, but it keeps his hands and mind busy, and Bruce has always loved the challenge. Wade talks at him, too, seemingly unoffended when Tony wanders off mid-conversation. 

"Do you ever not talk?" Bruce asks idly. 

"Merc with the mouth," Wade says proudly. He sits up taller, balled fists set firmly on his hips. "Got a lot of voices in here." He taps his temple, his eye holes narrowing. "Gotta get it out somehow." Bruce gets used to the constant sound of his voice, higher pitched than Wade's mass would suggest, and learns to mostly tune him out. Wade holds to his word and doesn't touch anything. 

Bruce doesn't exactly look forward to Wade's visits, but they become part of his routine. Familiar. Nice, almost. Something different every time, even if all he does is sit in his chair and chatter. 

Sometimes, he comes in wounded, still bleeding and reeking of sweat. Bruce's fingers itch to touch his wounds, to watch them heal and study them. Replicating even the smallest figure of his healing properties could save millions of lives. But Bruce reigns himself in and forces himself to remember the last time he tried to play God. 

In January, a little over six months since Wade crashed through his bedroom window, Wade walks into the laboratory literally holding his head in his hands. Thick tangles of skin and tendons hang from below the mask, dripping viscera onto the floor. Bruce fights the urge to vomit and pushes himself away from his desk. 

"What happened?" Bruce asks, grimacing as Wade sinks into his usual chair. His brain aches with the effort of trying to understand how Wade's body is still functioning at all. 

"He cares," the head says brightly, voice the same as ever even though his trachea is completely severed. "There were robots. Lots and lots of robots. With flamethrowers. Why don't I have a flamethrower?" Bruce scans him and winces at the burnt leather climbing up Wade's legs. He nearly topples over when Wade tosses his head at him like a basketball. Bruce catches it, horror climbing up his throat. "I normally don't ask this on a date, but if you could take the mask off, I can reattach. It's a bitch and a half to get off with one hand."

"You're never allowed to come back here again," Bruce says, gagging. He carefully digs his fingers under the edge of the mask, trying to ignore the slick feel of muscles against his bare palm. Slowly, he drags the mask up and off, throwing the head as soon as it's freed. Wade catches it one handed and sticks it back onto the gaping hole of his neck. 

Without the mask, Wade looks human. Mutilated and terrifying, but completely vulnerable and utterly human. Bruce thinks about Hulk tearing him apart and feels sick. Slowly, the skin around his neck begins to knit back together, readjusting his skull as fit. The scars blend almost seamlessly with the rest. 

"I know I'm not a looker, not like you, but I make up for it in wit and charm," Wade says. He rubs at his cheek, and the sound of his glove over his scars is like sandpaper on wood, rough and dark. Bruce wonders for a moment if he gets a five o'clock shadow, if he has to shave. How he possibly could. "Maybe not so much with the charm, but I've totally got the wit thing down." 

"Go home, Wade," Bruce says. He walks to the sink in the corner of the laboratory, turning the tap on with his wrist and rinsing his shaking hands off. He's tired and the smell of blood and burning flesh has taken over everything. Hulk is restless under his skin, straining to get out to see the source. 

"You're indestructible. I'm indestructible. We never have to worry about each other." Wade hops onto the counter next to him, kicking his feet against the cupboard. There's a hole in the ankle of his suit, open just enough to show the healed pink flesh below. Bruce stares at it uncomfortably. "I hear that's a real mood killer. I promise to always come back in at least two pieces as long as you promise to always come back in the nude. It's a good look for you."

"What do you want, Wade?" Bruce asks, shutting the tap off and leaning against it. He's worried. It's a surprising, ugly feeling sitting in his chest. He's worried about _Deadpool_ of all people and he doesn't know what to do with it. 

"I know a good place with burritos the size of my head," Wade says, grinning. His mouth is twisted in the corners, pulled up a bit too tight by skin too small. It's a familiar expression on an unfamiliar face. Carefully, Bruce reaches out to touch one of the bright blonde tufts of hair over Wade's ear. It's almost soft. "I can wear a suit. I look banging in a suit. Have you seen my ass recently?" Wade twists until he's half kneeling on the counter, waggling his backside and looking over his shoulder with his eyebrows raised. 

Bruce drops his head into his hands and counts to ten. When he looks up again, Wade's watching him with wide eyes. Bruce looks around his lab, looks at the blood on his desk and the seventeen cat trinkets lined up beside his computer and laughs until he can't breathe. 

"I think we broke him," Wade mutters. He prods at Bruce's chest and neck, head tilting to the side on his fully healed neck. 

"You really, really did," Bruce gasps. He wipes at his eyes and takes a deep breath. The room still needs an airing out, and someone's going to have to clean, but he can't think about anything but the sheer insanity beside him. "I'll go. But, please, no more-" He waves his hand at the chaos and tries to find words. "No more coming here in pieces."

"Deal," Wade says. He salutes, rushes across to the room to grab his mask, and is out the door in seconds. A moment later, his head pops back in, familiar white eyes peeking past the frame. "I'll pick you up in the Deadpoolmobile. It's got a basket."

Bruce sits back down at his desk and thumps his head on the wood. He's finally, finally cracked.

\---

"I would say I'm worried," Natasha says, settling onto the arm of the couch next to Bruce. She held a cup of hot chocolate in one hand, the remote in the other. "But I won ten bucks, so I won't hold it against you."

"What?" Bruce glances up at her, eyebrows drawn together. Natasha grins and points to where Wade's helping Clint pour an ungodly amount of chocolate syrup into a bowl of popcorn. Bruce's teeth hurt just watching. 

"I had money on you hitting and quitting it," Tony says from the armchair. He's half in Steve's lap, tablet on his knee and coffee cradled between his hands. "When I told you to get laid, I didn't mean make the crazy assassin dude your boyfriend." He swears when Steve flicks his ear.

"It's… sweet," Steve says dubiously. Wade and Clint crash into the room, bounding over the couch and making it jerk as their combined weight lands. Natasha aims the remote at the television and resolutely ignores them. 

Wade pushed the bottom half of his mask up past his mouth and shovels popcorn in, loud and brash and unrepentant and Bruce doesn't fight the urge to lean against him. For once, he's clean and smells more like sugar than rust and dirt. He's still annoying, still talks too much and shows up to the lab with wounds that would kill a lesser man, but Bruce… likes him. Likes his stupid jokes and his terrible gifts and the steady reliability of his existence. His desk is overflowing with tchotchkes and his bedroom has stains that he refuses to identify. It's as good as it is bizarre.

"I always get my man," Wade says around a mouthful of popcorn and chocolate. Bruce snorts and risks his health on the popcorn. 

It's bizarre and just as good.


End file.
